You snooze, you lose!

Study finds Pennsylvania workers are among the least punctual in the nation (each costing the economy $94)

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The average Pennsylvania worker is 7.8 minutes late to work each week (one of the tardiest in the nation).

On average, each employee costs the local economy $94 a year through being late.

Interactive infographic (with embed included)

It turns out hitting the snooze button in the morning can be a costly affair, as staff lateness is costing the Pennsylvania economy more than 500m USD a year, a new study has found.

The research, conducted by leading mattress review site, Mattress Clarity, asked 2,750 American employees about lateness in the workplace, and found that the average Pennsylvania worker loses 7.8 minutes per week to lateness, which costs employers $94 per head, every year*, or a staggering 500m USD.

Mattress Clarity also revealed that, nationally, men are worse culprits than women when it comes to lateness, turning up, on average, 7.2 minutes late to work each week, while women were slightly better at 6.4 minutes late per week.

So how does the rest of America compare? Mattress Clarity created an interactive map of the US that shows the breakdown of tardiness across the states.

As you can see, Mattress Clarity’s study reveals that those from Arkansas cost the economy the least per capita annually ($34.32). On the other end of the scale, employees in Wyoming ($158.61) generate the most expensive bill for their tardiness per person.

Mattress Clarity’s survey also showed that, as a nation, we don’t really try and mask our lateness, and only 1 in 10 Americans would try to sneak into the office and pretend they’re not late. Of those who said they would sneak in, 60 percent were men.

But perhaps we should be subtler, as Mattress Clarity’s survey revealed we’re also a nation of tattletales! When asked if they would consider reporting a colleague who was continually late, 27 percent of respondents said they would. The survey also revealed that 12 percent of Americans admitted that they would lie about their reason for being late.

When asked what excuses they’d use for being late, 49 percent said they’d say the traffic was bad, 14 percent would say their alarm didn’t go off, 14 percent would lie and say they had a doctor’s appointment, 12 percent would say they were feeling sick, 10 percent would blame the children or family for holding them up, and 2 percent would blame their lateness on public transport being cancelled.

Joe Auer from Mattress Clarity, says: “We know that lack of sleep can affect timeliness, so it’s really important to make getting those eight or so hours between the sheets a priority. When you feel well rested, you’re less likely to be late’.

*Based on the average salary in the state and the average amount of time each person is late to work.